Unsung icons: Picture rails The many uses of the wooden strip

COMEDIAN DAVID SMIEDT TAKES AN IRREVERENT, BUT APPRECIATIVE, LOOK AT THE CLASSIC THINGS THAT DEFINE YOU-BEAUT AUSSIE LIFE

Say what you like about custom-made furniture that costs more than your first car or a trinket you hauled back from a Moroccan souk via Antwerp-London-Dubai. Nothing adds individuality to a home like art. Whether it’s the famous Tretchikoff ‘Chinese Girl’ (a stunning Asian model whose face bore unmistakable traces of impending seasickness),

Monet’s invariable haystacks carefully nursed in cardboard tubing from Giverny, or a garage-sale find that a friend of your grandad’s heard from a guy at the pub may actually be an Arthur Streeton, pictures always remain in memory.

These weren’t so much affixed to the walls, but dangled off them via twine which, if the homeowner was particularly diligent, may have been painted to match the mushroom or salmon of the walls, thus promoting the illusion of invisibility.

This was the era of the picture rail. These mouldings, inches wide (they were a squarely non-metric feature), were affixed to the wall horizontally, usually at a height that coincided with the tops of windows. There was also, crucially, a lip on the rail to which could be affixed brass clips – think paper clips on steroids. Then, through the magic of gravity, string and corresponding hooks, your home became a gallery.

Since the picture rail ran around the entirety of the room, it invited visual excess. No longer limited by unyielding plaster harder than The Rock’s sixpack, one could hang with abandon. That representation of chunky Elvis on velvet bought on a dare in Vegas? There was space for that. That sun-faded dusk photo taken on your honeymoon? Come on down. A family portrait where everyone had to dress the same and your dad had his ‘I’d rather be anywhere else’ rictus grin on? Of course there’s a spot.

Going out on a pictorial limb, picture rails democratised the wall. It was no longer just for ‘art’ – dusty landscapes of ancestral lands, horribly un-PC images straight out of the stereotype school of portraiture, fruit-filled still lifes so boring they could work as

anaesthesia. Now, mementos, keepsakes and wedding shots were elevated from beside tables and fireplace ledges.

Picture rails were also a boon for renters whose landlords would scan for wall damage like Berlin soldiers during the Cold War. Better still, if you were a tenant who absolutely loathed the hue predilections of lessor, you could minimise its lavender impact on your life with bulk picture-rail action. Ditto water stains and cracked paint. These long rails were like botox to a facade that had seen better days.

Because they jutted out from the walls, it occurred to the savvy decorator that the space above picture rails could be used as effectively as that below it. They were, in essence, mini ledges just perfect for displaying small objet – and of course you had to use the French, naturellement.

At a stroke, the postcards and prints, miniature sculptures and foraged seashells were liberated from desk drawers and storage units then brought into the light. They were the modern equivalent of a cabinet of curiosities, a smorgasbord for those inquisitive enough to raise their eyes above the horizontal.

The desire for clean wall lines eventually put paid to the highly functional picture rail. Some survive in older homes, but are more tolerated than longed for: the visual equivalent of pineapple on pizza. But in their day, the picture rail stood above all other competitors when it came to enlivening our homes with imagery both personal and vaunted, intimate and enlarged. You could say they really broke the mould.

“IT INVITED VISUAL EXCESS. NO LONGER LIMITED BY UNYIELDING plaster HARDER THAN THE ROCK’S SIXPACK, ONE COULD HANG WITH ABANDON”